St. George organizers make final push for petition signatures

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) -
Organizers and volunteers for the St. George petition are down to the last minute to get the 2,694 signatures still needed to get the incorporation on a ballot.

Last October, the Incorporation for St. George's Lionel Rainey said they turned in signatures to the East Baton Rouge Registrar of Voters. However, the registrar could only verify 15,165 signatures of the needed 17,859. According to state law, St. George organizers had 60 days to try and get the rest of the signatures needed. The deadline is Thursday.

"Tomorrow, we will have to turn in 2,700 signatures or more to be able to have this validated and put on a petition," Rainey said. "We're confident that we have the amount of signatures that we need."

He added they hope to get more than 2,694 signatures because they expect some people to withdraw their names from the petition.

The petition locations are Ralph's Market/Firestone on Jones Creek and Tiger Bend, Darnell Browning State Farm on Jones Creek Road, at the corner of North Oak Hills and Siegen Lane and Louisiana Lagniappe. Organizers asked people with any signatures to drop them off at one of the locations or call 610-4423 to arrange pick-up.

The signatures must be turned in by Thursday at 4:30 p.m.. Organizers said they will accept signatures up to the time the petition is turned into the registrar. If the registrar is able to verify the needed amount of signatures, the petition would then head to the governor's desk for his signature. He would also call the election date.

The next slated state election is October 24.

Better Together BR's M.E. Cormier said they have been going door-to-door and handing out flyers asking people to withdraw their names from the petition.

"People have until the registrar is done vetting the petition to withdraw their names so they have beyond the 60 day mark for probably a couple of weeks," said Cormier.

"We're actually counterbalancing however many names they remove from the petition. We don't know how many names are going to be removed so that's why we're trying to get as many additional signatures as possible," said Rainey.

The battle between both sides continues over the same issues: taxes and the future of children.

Youngstown State University student Albert Maruna was caught red-handed and arrested this week after he allegedly attempted to have sex with a 15-year-old boy, who turned out to be an undercover officer.

Youngstown State University student Albert Maruna was caught red-handed and arrested this week after he allegedly attempted to have sex with a 15-year-old boy, who turned out to be an undercover officer.